Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

As action movies go, Live Free or Die Hard (a.k.a. Die Hard 4.0) is a pretty enjoyable ride. The thrills are plentiful and the stunts are pretty well staged: I particularly enjoyed John McClane's use of a fire hydrant to take out a helicopter.

As a Die Hard movie, however, I found it lacking. It feels almost arbitrary that this should be a Die Hard film. Bruce Willis has made a lot of similar movies over the past decade, and any of them could have been turned into a Die Hard film with as much authenticity as this one. Take 16 Blocks, for example, change Willis' character name to John McClane, and you would have a much more interesting and faithful continuation of the series than Live Free or Die Hard.

There are a number of ways that Live Free or Die Hard loses the essence of the Die Hard series. First, location is always a character in the Die Hard series. All the previous Die Hard films are built around McClane battling against and being resourceful with a clearly defined space: in the original Die Hard, it is a building; in Die Hard 2, an airport; in Die Hard with a Vengeance, it is Manhattan. The building is a character; the airport is a character; Manhattan is a character. This use of space marked the Die Hard series as an heir to the disaster movies of the 1970s that used location in a similar way, such as The Towering Inferno (a building), Airport (an airport), and Earthquake (a city). It is also the reason why Die Hard is often referred to as the greatest action movie of all time, because it so thoroughly understood how the use of space and location is fundamental to what makes action cinema work: put simply, action is about characters moving through space and overcoming obstacles. The first two Die Hard films approached this by placing McClane in confined spaces at a single location; Die Hard with a Vengeance flipped the formula on its head and made McClane's challenge be the entire island of Manhattan. In all three films, McClane has to continually be resourceful as he improvises solutions to problems of space. It is for this reason that Die Hard redefined action cinema, with most action movies in its wake being described as "Die Hard on a _______". Live Free or Die Hard continues the disaster movie tradition, but it really misses the target as far as the use of location is concerned. To be honest, I can't remember where most of the movie took place. In this sense, the disaster movie influences of Live Free or Die Hard are not from the 1970s, but from the post-9/11 era, and it feels much more like an episode of 24 than a Die Hard film, where the battle is against time, and space is virtual, sprawling and multiplicitous.

Another key way that Live Free or Die Hard loses the essence of the Die Hard series is in the John McClane character. When the original Die Hard came out, it marked a new kind of action movie for the era. Action cinema of the 1980s had been dominated by the muscle-bound supermen portrayed by Schwarzenegger and Stallone, and by skilled martial artists like Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme. Prior to Die Hard, Bruce Willis was known as a wisecracking comedy actor, gaining stardom on TV's Moonlighting and transitioning into film with comedies like Blind Date. The transitional year for action cinema was 1988: the comedian Bruce Willis moved into action with Die Hard, while action hero Schwarzenegger moved into comedy with Twins. The careers of both actors were changed forever, and action cinema had a new kind of hero: the vulnerable average Joe with everyday problems and an ordinary physique, who does the best he can and is not afraid to express emotion. The John McClane of the first three Die Hard films is the Bruce Springsteen of action cinema, tapping into the same American spirit of blue collar working men who've got a lot of personal baggage, but also enough pluck to make good. He's always a little behind the times and thinks that progress peaked with frozen pizza; he's a scrappy Jersey boy who always has to draw on good old fashioned cowboy methods to overcome sophisticated techno-terrorists.

Live Free or Die Hard keeps McClane's Jersey boy wisecracks, but he's become a complete cartoon character. Gone is the vulnerable McClane who cries about his wife while he pulls glass from his bare feet; in his place is a guy who can drive cars through buildings and swing from the tails of fighter jets. I think this reflects the baggage Willis now brings to the role: he's now known more as an action hero than a comedian; he's become the Stallone-like cartoon hero that the original Die Hard sought to displace. He also has an annoying sidekick. In the first two Die Hard films, McClane mostly had to work alone; in Die Hard with a Vengeance he was teamed up with Samuel L. Jackson, a layman with no real special skills, who has as many challenges in fighting the bad guys as McClane. His new sidekick in Live Free or Die Hard is a computer geek. On paper, this might have seemed like a good idea, teaming McClane up with his opposite. In other words, just as Willis and Jackson made a great odd couple in Die Hard with a Vengeance, so too would Willis and the Mac Guy. But doing this completely undermines what made the earlier films work so well: i.e., having the odds so heavily stacked against cowboy McClane as he battles techno-savvy bad guys. It could have been a great premise: McClane has to figure out how to fight cyber-terrorists using his old school techniques. But every time McClane hits any such obstacles, the computer geek steps in with some technobabble and gets them out of the jam. Take the scene with the smart car, for example. What would have been better: Luddite McClane having to figure out how to start a car that is cyber-protected from thieves; or an extended, unfunny comedy scene in which the computer geek steps in and teaches McClane how things are done in the modern era? From a dramatic point-of-view, a single change would have rescued the screenwriters from this structural problem: nix the computer geek; have McClane work alone.

Having said all of this, I would still watch the film again. I did enjoy it while it lasted, but it's soured in my memory. A second viewing might remind me what I liked about it.